Contents

With his work with Felton Friends of Locally Owned Water (FLOW) and other activities in Felton (like the Friends of the Library), Frank seems to know everyone in Felton. People come to the table and say hello to Frank, and immediately Frank starts off into his pitch about FOSS and GNU/Linux.

This farmers market table seems to be working well, not only for the LUG — which had nearly 20 people attend the meeting last Saturday — but also for FOSS in general.

People have a general sense of what Linux is — it’s that operating system thing, right? — and seeing it in an arena that’s not normally a “tech environment” makes it a lot less threatening, for loss of a better term. So I would strongly urge everyone who wants to promote FOSS, GNU/Linux and Linux (for those who want to make that distinction, which I don’t anymore) take the word forth to places where you might not normally find tech talk; like farmers markets, or tractor pulls, or gun shows. Anywhere where people congregate is a place where FOSS can be pitched.

Sean: The first stories were about SCO, and it’s the “story that keeps on going.” It was FUD and is still FUD. The bogey monster in the corner.

Steven: Linux is real. It was IBM making Linux the center of their business operations. Now over half of large enterprises are using Linux. We’re now the majority, and that started when IBM said Linux is real.

Jason: The birth of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. It was something that had to happen, where distros forked out into the kind of stability that was needed for where Linux has gotten to be. And it set up an example of a business model and created a space where Red Hat Linux had been, which Fedora filled, and in that space, Debian filled part of it, and CentOS has risen. It was a move that had to happen and an important step in the development of Linux.

Ryan: The growing ubiquity of the Linux platform in the mobile device ecosystem. It’s practically dominant, whether it’s your TiVo or Kindle. And other key components of the open source stack are there.

Zonker: The rapid ascent of Ubuntu and forcing companies to really focus on community. Where Red Hat and certainly Novell weren’t focused on community and were concentrating on the enterprise, Ubuntu’s rapid ascent forced companies to look at community in developing their products.
Kerner: Fedora was born about the same time.
Zonker: Fedora was a failed attempt until they were forced to do something.

Desktop

Software packaging, gas used to travel to the local big box store for software…I could go on. But I think you see where I’m going with this. When you utilize desktop Linux as an option instead of the usual proprietary OS, you generally find that you’ve saved on both wasted packaging for software as well as the expense of going out to buy it.

Digital software copies have helped with this to some extent, but the fact is, brick and mortar stores are still stuffed to the gills with packaged proprietary software for the masses.

Some individuals may say this is fine, as it’s helping our economy. Software sales are connected to jobs. But what happens if there was suddenly a big enough shift in the economy that people stopped buying software both in person and online?

How is a big box store full of packaged software with a ticking expiration date of OS compatibility a good thing for anyone?

Dell makes PCs for consumers. The company that made its name selling directly from its website, doesn’t claim to be on the bleeding edge of PC hardware but if consumers want it, Dell will deliver it. So it’s unsurprising that in the main Dell has always supplied PCs equipped with Microsoft’s Windows.

It was a little surprising when Dell recently set up a dedicated sub-section on its site for Ubuntu Linux. Even more surprising was that the microsite listed, in detail, why Dell thought Ubuntu was a big deal. The one that stood out for most users was that the site said that Ubuntu was “more secure” than Windows.

[...]

All told, Dell appears to be throwing more and more of its weight behind Ubuntu Linux.

DistroWatch, the popular Linux distribution-tracking website, publishes a continually updated list of what it judges to be the ten most widely-used Linux distributions globally. This post provides a brief overview of each distro on today’s “DistroWatch 10″ list, which range from the newbie-friendly Ubuntu to the sysadmin-oriented Gentoo.

Kernel Space

In an early morning announcement, LinuxCon kicked off with an introduction from Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the The Linux Foundation, to the newest member of the Linux Foundation Board, Rob Chandhok of Qualcomm. Qualcomm joins companies like IBM, Intel, NEC and Oracle as a platinum level sponsor of the foundation.

There is a widely held belief that Linux is a completely secure operating system. But to Brad Spengler of the grsecurity project, the belief is far from accurate. And he has the kernel exploits to prove it.

Speaking at the Linux security summit during the Linux Foundation’s LinuxCon conference here this week, Spengler described how his efforts have resulted in Linux becoming more hardened for security, even though his approach — developing Linux kernel exploits — may be viewed with suspicion by some.

Jim Zemlin: In the last year, there’s been this huge increase in device makers using Linux and open source in a much more high volume, high stakes way with more sophisticated supply chains. To make a Nexus One, you’ve got a chipset vendor, a radio supplier, a middleware supplier, a network operator — all these different people passing code around and shipping stuff.

Applications

User interface prototyping is supposed to be a creative discipline, where the tools don’t get in the way, so you can place your ideas on the screen just like you would draw them freehand on the back of a napkin. Up until recently, however, there was not a high quality open source UI prototyper, so designers were left with the less-than-optimal workflow of creating mockups in Inkscape or the Gimp, or else forced to use proprietary web applications that limited storage or added watermarks. Those days are in the past, though, thanks to Pencil.

Server provisioning is nothing but load the Linux or UNIX like operating systems automatically with actual operating systems, device drivers, data, and make a server ready for network operation without any user input. Typically you select a server from a pool of available servers, load the operating systems (such as RHEL, Fedora, FreeBSD, Debian), and finally customize storage, network (IP, gateway, bounding etc), drivers, applications, users etc. Using the following tools you can perform automated unattended operating system installation, configuration, set virtual machines and much more. These software can be used to install a lot (say thousands) of Linux and UNIX systems at the same time.

The story of how Icarus Falling is being written and published is almost as interesting as the book itself – that is if you are nerdy kind of writing geek. The book was originally written in MS Word 97. Over the last several years, our computers have been upgraded a few times and my wife migrated permanently to Linux, Ubuntu specifically.

[...]

Icarus Falling was prepared almost entirely with open source software.

Wine

That would be over a quarter of a million dollars from Linux gamers (in just over a week of the game’s release). Are you telling me it would cost more than a quarter of a million dollars to bring a game, that can already run 100% using OpenGL, to the Linux operating system?

Desktop Environments

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC)

New Versions of the KDE Development Platform, the Plasma Desktop and Netbook workspaces, and many applications are released today with the version number 4.5.0. The KDE team focused on the usability, performance and stability of many previously introduced new features and technologies. Below, find the 3 separate announcements for each of KDE’s products: The Development Platform, the Applications Compilation and the Plasma Workspaces.

The best way to get a new version of KDE is to wait until your distro includes it in a stable release. Users who want to get an early look can compile the KDE SC 4.5 source code, which is available for download from the project’s Web site. There are also experimental binary packages available for several different Linux distributions. I tested KDE SC 4.5 on Kubuntu 10.04 using the Kubuntu PPA. For additional details about the release, you can refer to the official announcement.

PCLinuxOS/Mandrake/Mandriva Family

Being awhile since Mandriva 2010 Spring was released. Considering the company’s financial woes, and the rumored takeover negotiations, we thought they might never release it, but they did. Mandriva Linux 2010, aka Mandriva Linux 2010.1, was made available for download on July 8, 2010. There are three versions:

* Mandriva One 2010 Spring – the free live CD edition that contains the usual cast of free software and a limited set of non-free applications. Available for 32-bit platforms in KDE and GNOME.
* Mandriva Free 2010 Spring – the no-cost edition that ships free of proprietary (non-free) applications. Available for 32- and 64-bit platforms.
* Mandriva Powerpack 2010 Spring – this is the fee-based edition (49 €, or about 65 USD). It comes loaded with all the applications – free and non-free – that you will ever need. It ships, for example, with non-free applications that are missing in Mandriva One. Like Mandriva Free, it is also available for 32- and 64-bit platforms.

Red Hat Family

Debian Family

Debian developer, Chris Lamb, has created a web-based service to allow users to build their own customized live operating systems. After selecting your preferred options, the server builds and readies your image. Users can select from CD, DVD, USB, or Netboot images. Debian Live Studio requires registration, but is free of cost to use and consists of 100% free software.

Canonical/Ubuntu

Ubuntu and community have largely become two words that are known to work well together. The Ubuntu community comprises a large group of individuals from many backgrounds, not just the stereotypical bearded geek. With such a vast and diverse group of people, there has to be some form of governance. While this largely meritocracy-based control, where individuals are empowered based on their proven contributions, isn’t there to dictate what community members should be doing, it is there to try to organise what individuals would like to offer and how best they can go about that. It is also a support mechanism and network for all Ubuntu enthusiasts.

If Canonical’s commercial customers want to count their user-base, that’s between Canonical and those customers. I do not think this kind of functionality has any place in a free software product. I do not think this should be in the Ubuntu repository or on the Ubuntu project ISO images.

Currently this system is only slated to be used by the specific OEM customer who requested it, and it will be up to the customer to disclose the data they collect as they wish. I wonder if it would be a good thing to install on normal ISOs though, but this would be part of our normal participatory community decision making process. Projects like this make think that users would like to be counted, so long as they can’t be tracked. We’ll see how it plays out, it may be something to discuss at UDS if the community feels the data would be useful.

First of all, I was not impressed with Shuttleworth’s response to the whole upstream commits issue. He sounded more poetic than a technical guy to me on that post. Jono Bacon did a little better. That notwithstanding, the fact remains that there are millions of Linux (sorry GNU/Linux!) users out there that got exposed to the entire FOSS world via Ubuntu. That in itself is no small feat.

I also agree that Ubuntu is not synonymous with Linux, I am not aware if Canonical is seeking to achieve that goal anyway. However, what I seriously have a problem with is the needless and mostly very inflammatory comments that some hardliners make at the mere mention of the word Ubuntu. Is it not ironic and hypocritical to have people that claim they are saving others by giving them choices other than Windows get all worked up at the mention of one of the options available as part of the choice subset they offer?

Phones

Android

BTS’ particular pride and joy is its “Praefectus” operating system, which BTS claims can link commercial smartphones such as iPhones and Androids (with a BTS proprietary SIMM card installed), militarized handhelds from different companies, and existing military radio nets into a seamless whole.

This return to the core engagement in co-development in transparent communities is very welcome. Software freedom matters, and this approach leverages rather challenges it. So the bubble is over, and open source will live on stronger than ever – “the King is dead, long live the King”.

Web Browsers

Mozilla

Mozilla has been in a heated discussion with some of its users over a major change in Firefox 4 that has somewhat snuck up without warning. Firefox will be updating itself silently, without required user action. Now it appears that Mozilla may be looking for a compromise that may result in a half-baked solution that may or may not silently patch security problems in Firefox and most certainly will not upgrade your browser to the latest version.

Oracle

Wim Coekaerts, senior vice president for Linux and virtualization engineering at Oracle, came to LinuxCon with a message: The open source operating system will remain a priority at Oracle even now that it owns Sun Microsystems and its competing Solaris OS.

In a keynote address here at the Linux Foundation’s conference, Coekaerts detailed Oracle’s Linux efforts to date and provided some guidance to Linux kernel developers on where the platform should go next.

As part of an effort to maintain customer commitment to its derivative of the venerable UNIX operating system, Oracle today said that it plans to deliver a version 11 of its Solaris operating system in 2011.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

Richard Stallman will speak about the Free Software Movement, which campaigns for freedom so that computer users can cooperate to control their own computing activities. The Free Software Movement developed the GNU operating system, often erroneously referred to as Linux, specifically to establish these freedoms.

Freedom for software users is no less important today than it was five years ago.

The definition of free software is that it respects users’ freedom. It’s free as in freedom — price is not the issue. Specifically, it means that you as user are free to run the program as you wish, study the source code and change it so that the program does what you wish, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. With these freedoms, the users control the software and control their computing.

Without these freedoms, the software controls the users. Don’t let that happen to you!

I launched the development of the GNU operating system in 1984 specifically to make it possible to use a computer without letting the software control you. In 1992, the kernel Linux was freed and filled the last gap in GNU. The GNU/Linux system makes it possible to use a computer and have freedom, but in order to realise this benefit, you need to take care to avoid installing non-free programs.

Gmane is by now a very important piece of my Emacs life. It allows me to get postings to lots of mailing lists using NNTP, i.e., using Gnus, i.e., in a way fully integrated with the “information retrieval and massaging” engine i’ve built around a handful of Emacs packages and elisp snippets (one central actor among them being org-mode).

One thing that I discovered recently is that external factors can sour the impressions of a piece of software.For instance, I was using a UNIX session where the keyboard mapping weren’t optimal. There’s nothing like unfamiliar behaviour for throwing you off track because you felt your usual habits were being obstructed. For instance, finding that a Backspace key is behaving like a Delete one is such an obstruction. It wasn’t the fault of Emacs and I have found that using Ctrl+K (C-k in the documentation) to delete whole lines is invaluable.

Government

I’m actually fairly excited about the OSFA and their mission, because I think the argument for Open Source and non-Proprietary standards is even stronger for public records than it is in the private sector (and I think it’s pretty damn strong in the private sector to start off with!)

The US Gov’t could close Bug #1 virtually overnight if it standardized on an Open Source platform. I know that won’t happen, but the American government is so influential, it is a very effective target for Free Software and Open Source promotion.

Licensing

This led to a very low-key, discreet approach, whereby defenders of the GNU GPL – since this was the main licence involved – tried to persuade companies to comply, without resorting to heavy-handed legal methods. That explains why there have been so few cases argued in court, and why those that have moved in that direction have all ended successfully for free software, as in the latest example.

The Linux Foundation announced today their own FLOSS license compliance program, which included the launch of a few software tools under a modified BSD license. They also have offered some training courses for those that want to learn how to comply.

If this Linux Foundation (LF) program is successful, I may get something I’ve wished for since the first enforcement I ever worked on back in late 1998: I’d like to never do GPL enforcement again. I admit I talk a lot about GPL enforcement. It’s indeed been a major center of my work for twelve years, but I can’t say I’ve ever really liked doing it.

Openness/Sharing

Knowledge equals power, goes the saying. If that’s true, Mendeley’s API could be very powerful indeed. The service, pitched to universities as a way of organising, tracking and ranking citations in academic and science research papers, has opened its API to the public.

Open Data

The University of East Anglia is to receive JISC funding for a project to open up its research on global warming to scrutiny and re-use.

The university, which was at the centre of a scandal revealed by leaked emails from its Climatic Research Unit, will examine how best to expose climate data for re-use, make it easier for researchers to find the data and to understand its validity.

Programming

I got 804 responses, which is more than I expected. Since the survey was sent out to the main Haskell mailing lists, posted on my blog, and announced on Twitter there’s most likely some selection bias in the results. However, given the number of replies, I still think the results are indicative of the community as a whole.

Standards/Consortia

What a surprising news. ODF will soon become a mandatory format for all government documents. I have posted this since a year ago and two years ago, but finally it will come true. Right now, the Indonesian government is trying to migrate all computers in the governmental level to use Open Source to reduce it’s spending just to buy licenses for Windows and many other Microsoft products (mostly Microsoft Office). When that target has been completed (estimated 2011), they will follow with standarizing the national format to use ODF.

Muro works in all modern browsers, and you can dive in and start drawing on a blank canvas, all without Flash or any other plug-in. There are several brushes available to everyone, but to access the more advanced features, you’ll need to create a DeviantArt account and log in.

THE LAST PART of SemiAccurate’s look at the Intel/FTC settlement examines some of the worst accusations against Intel. Compiler tricks, technical openness, and a watchdog. Intel could be seriously hamstrung by some of these remedies, and worse yet, they could be the ones hamstringing themselves.

Those simple rules have allowed Gordon to rack up a record-setting 2.8 million miles on his beloved Volvo P1800. We caught up with him last week, when, shortly after his 70th birthday, Gordon announced he hoped to reach 3 million by the time he turned 73. That feat will require him to drive an average of around 5,500 miles per month.

Health

International travel and medical tourism have led to the rapid, global spread of drug-resistant bacteria that may presage the end of antibiotics and leave doctors struggling to treat infected patients, scientists warn today.

A new gene conferring high levels of resistance to almost all antibiotics has been found to be widespread in forms of gut bacteria that can cause potentially life-threatening pneumonia and urinary tract infections.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

Now Tibetan poet and writer Tsering Woeser has compiled an impressive dossier that shows that the Zhouqu landslide in Gansu Province that has killed (so far) 702, with over 1,000 still missing, was likely precipitated by a variety of devastating ecological activities by – yes – man.

This past weekend, coal company executives convened for the annual West Virginia Coal Association meeting in White Sulphur Springs, WV. The event, which was closed to the public, was held at the lavish Greenbrier Resort, where an overnight stay can cost upwards of $6,000 (plus tax). One panelist at the meeting, state Senate Finance Chairman Walt Helmick, pointed out the exclusivity of the resort hotel: “I used to drive by the Greenbrier often when I was young, but I never had the money to come in because I’m a former coal miner.”

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. was sued by five computer-network technicians who claim the bank denied them overtime pay for their work as contractors.

The lawsuit seeks class-action status and unspecified damages, Goldman Sachs said today in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The plaintiffs contend they deserve overtime pay for working more than 40 hours a week.

Goldman Sachs’s conduct was “willful and in bad faith,” according to the technicians, who say the bank never paid them overtime for work weeks that topped 70 hours. More than 100 employees in New York and New Jersey were underpaid as a result, according to the lawsuit filed in May.

According to information provided by the bank to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, derivatives businesses generated $11.3 billion to $15.9 billion of the company’s $45.17 billion in net revenue for 2009, as said in media reports. That’s 25 to 35 percent. Until recently, a good chunk of that came from CDO-related activity.

In “The BoomBustBlog Review of Goldman Sach’s 2nd Quarter, 2010 Performance: I Told You So!” I took the time to remind readers and subscribers that Goldman Sachs, despite adulation in the press and the sell side, barely covers its cost of capital in ROE. This means that the firm is actually a lot riskier (economically) than many either realize or admit.

The bank admitted to the investigation in a regular quarterly filing with the SEC, which showed it lost money on ten days in the second quarter, breaking its three-month winning streak from the first quarter when it made money on every single trading day.

Meanwhile, lawyers acting for Fabrice Tourre, the Goldman banker named in the fraud allegations alongside the bank itself, said during a pre-trial hearing he may subpoena as many as 50 Goldman colleagues at his upcoming trial with the SEC.

A monkey economy is as irrational as our human economy. Why do people make irrational decisions in such a predictable way? Laurie Santos looks for the roots of human irrationality by watching the way our primate relatives make decisions. This video documents a clever series of experiments in “monkeynomics” showing how some of the silly choices we make are made by monkeys, too.

Censorship/Privacy/Civil Rights

The owner of an internet service provider who mounted a high-profile court challenge to a secret FBI records demand has finally been partially released from a 6-year-old gag order that forced him to keep his role in the case a secret from even his closest friends and family. He can now identify himself and discuss the case, although he still can’t reveal what information the FBI sought.

Nicholas Merrill, 37, was president of New York-based Calyx Internet Access when he received a so-called “national security letter” from the FBI in February 2004 demanding records of one of his customers and filed a lawsuit to challenge it. His company was a combination ISP and security consultancy business that was launched in the mid-90s and had about 200 customers, Merrill said, many of them advertising agencies and non-profit groups.

Internet/Net Neutrality/DRM

Let’s go back in time, shall we, to around 1997 when Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were college students at Stanford. Let’s suppose that there were no such thing as net neutrality, that the idea the internet should be an open place never occurred to anyone.

Intellectual Monopolies

Copyrights

Sony was busted (and paid out much more) for even more egregious violations back in 2005. Sony’s promoters went so far as to tell radio stations that the “real people” (they were planted) calling in to request songs had to be more convincing.

“As for Saturday nights, you need to rotate your people,” said one message from a promoter. “My guys on the inside say that it’s the same couple of girls calling in every week and that they are not inspired enough to be put on the air. They’ve got to be excited. They need to be going out, getting drunk, or going in the hot tube [sic], or going clubbing… you get the idea.”

Later that year, fellow major label Warner Music paid out $5 million to make its own payola problems go away.

In 2006, the world’s largest music label, Universal, paid $12 million for a long history of payola. As the New York Times noted, the payola could take many forms, including trips and baseball tickets.

“In April 2004, Universal provided Mr. Michaels—by then a programmer at WHYI-FM in Miami—with a New York hotel room and New York Yankees tickets. The company booked the room under a false name and used a false Social Security number to conceal the transaction, the document states.”

Because this is not just any movie. This is a Tesco movie. The supermarket giant that inhabits virtually every corner of our existence has this year moved into film-making with a straight-to-DVD movie or, as its makers prefer, a “DVD Premiere”. This autumn, Paris Connections will go on sale exclusively in Tesco stores. If successful, it could revolutionise the movie business, removing distributors and agents in one swipe and transforming how many films are made and funded.

Determining whether a work is still under copyright or is in the public domain is one of the most fundamental—and yet most challenging—problems of copyright law. A leading source of the problem is the law. The law of copyright duration is a mess. I have written elsewhere about the problems associated with understanding and applying the duration law. I am happy to post to the Copyright Advisory Office website a new paper intended to walk you through the process of “Researching the Copyright Status of a Book” (PDF). It is linked from relevant pages on the website about permissions and copyright duration.

ACTA

The United States and European Union are scheduled to meet Aug. 16 in Washington to try reach agreement on contentious issues that have emerged between the two governments within the Anticounterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations, according to informed sources.

The two governments will attempt to come to an agreement on whether the ACTA should address protection of geographic indications (GIs), patents and industrial design, and if end users would fall under the definition for commercial scale infringement, an informed source said.

The lunacy of the EPO with its patent maximalism will likely go unchecked (and uncorrected) if Battistelli gets his way and turns the EPO into another SIPO (Croatian in the human rights sense and Chinese in the quality sense)

Another long installment in a multi-part series about UPC at times of post-truth Battistelli-led EPO, which pays the media to repeat the lies and pretend that the UPC is inevitable so as to compel politicians to welcome it regardless of desirability and practicability

Implementing yet more of his terrible ideas and so-called 'reforms', Battistelli seems to be racing to the bottom of everything (patent quality, staff experience, labour rights, working conditions, access to justice etc.)

"Good for trolls" is a good way to sum up the Unitary Patent, which would give litigators plenty of business (defendants and plaintiffs, plus commissions on high claims of damages) if it ever became a reality

Microsoft's continued fascination with and participation in the effort to undermine Alice so as to make software patents, which the company uses to blackmail GNU/Linux vendors, widely acceptable and applicable again